Emotional scenes elicit more pronounced self-reported emotional experience and greater EPN and LPP modulation when compared to emotional faces

Emotional faces and scenes carry a wealth of overlapping and distinct perceptual information. Despite widespread use in the investigation of emotional perception, expressive face and evocative scene stimuli are rarely assessed in the same experiment. Here, we evaluated self-reports of arousal and pleasantness, as well as early and late event-related potentials (e.g., N170, early posterior negativity [EPN], late positive potential [LPP]) as subjects viewed neutral and emotional faces and scenes, including contents representing anger, fear, and joy. Results demonstrate that emotional scenes were rated as more evocative than emotional faces, as only scenes produced elevated self-reports of arousal. In addition, viewing scenes resulted in more extreme ratings of pleasantness (and unpleasantness) than did faces. EEG results indicate that both expressive faces and emotional scenes evoke enhanced negativity in the N170 component, while the EPN and LPP components show significantly enhanced modulation only by scene, relative to face stimuli. These data suggest that viewing emotional scenes results in a more pronounced emotional experience that is associated with reliable modulation of visual event-related potentials that are implicated in emotional circuits in the brain.     

Discrete-Trial Functional Analysis and Functional Communication Training with Three Adults with Intellectual Disabilities and Problem Behavior

We conducted a sequence of two studies on the use of discrete-trial functional analysis and functional communication training. First, we used discrete-trial functional analysis (DTFA) to identify the function of problem behavior in three adults with intellectual disabilities and problem behavior. Results indicated clear patterns of problem behavior for each participant. Second, we used a modified multiple baseline design across participants to assess the effectiveness of functional communication training (FCT) on the acquisition of a replacement communicative response. We conducted postacquisition discrimination probes to evaluate the discriminated use of the new response. Results indicated that FCT was effective in producing acquisition and discriminated use of the replacement response for all participants. The study has relevance because of the empirical evidence of DTFA and its applicability to adults with intellectual disabilities.     

DISCRIMINATION LEARNING IN ADULTS WITH NEUROCOGNITIVE DISORDERS

Alzheimer's disease is the most commonly known neurocognitive disorder characterized by deterioration in areas such as memory, attention, and activities of daily living. From a behavioral perspective, memory and attentional deficits may be described as deterioration of stimulus control. This paper provides a case study of discrimination behavior in a patient with neurocognitive disorder. The purpose of the current study was twofold: (i) to study the effect of using presumed familiar pictures in arbitrary matching‐to‐sample tasks and (ii) to study variables that affect stimulus control in a patient diagnosed with vascular dementia. There were 12 conditional discrimination experimental conditions with various types of stimuli, from familiar pictures to identity matching. The results showed that the participant's responses were not in accord with experimenter‐defined stimulus classes when using familiar pictures. However, intact stimulus control by sample stimulus was established following systematic procedural changes in the conditional discrimination tasks. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Training Structure and the Passage of Time on Trained and Derived Performance

The Psychological Record - Conditional discriminations established using a linear series training structure were shown in a previous study to be intact when unreinforced trials assessing such...     

Naive Probability: Model‐Based Estimates of Unique Events

We describe a dual‐process theory of how individuals estimate the probabilities of unique events, such as Hillary Clinton becoming U.S. President. It postulates that uncertainty is a guide to improbability. In its computer implementation, an intuitive system 1 simulates evidence in mental models and forms analog non‐numerical representations of the magnitude of degrees of belief. This system has minimal computational power and combines evidence using a small repertoire of primitive operations. It resolves the uncertainty of divergent evidence for single events, for conjunctions of events, and for inclusive disjunctions of events, by taking a primitive average of non‐numerical probabilities. It computes conditional probabilities in a tractable way, treating the given event as evidence that may be relevant to the probability of the dependent event. A deliberative system 2 maps the resulting representations into numerical probabilities. With access to working memory, it carries out arithmetical operations in combining numerical estimates. Experiments corroborated the theory's predictions. Participants concurred in estimates of real possibilities. They violated the complete joint probability distribution in the predicted ways, when they made estimates about conjunctions: P(A), P(B), P(A and B), disjunctions: P(A), P(B), P(A or B or both), and conditional probabilities P(A), P(B), P(B|A). They were faster to estimate the probabilities of compound propositions when they had already estimated the probabilities of each of their components. We discuss the implications of these results for theories of probabilistic reasoning.     

White Noise to Decrease Problem Behaviors in the Classroom for a Child With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Continuous white noise played through headphones was used as a classroom intervention to reduce off-task behavior and increase assignment production and accuracy for a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). When listening to white noise the student's off-task behavior decreased from 89% during baseline to 62%. Subsequently, he began taking a stimulant medication for his ADHD. Pharmacotherapy alone (65% off task) was approximately equivalent to white noise alone. When medication was combined with white noise his off-task behavior decreased to 45%. Assignment production was also enhanced while listening to white noise, whereas accuracy remained high throughout.     

Christian versus Muslim employment in Mandatory Palestine

During the British Mandate in Palestine, there existed among the majority Muslim Arab population a perception that the British favoured Christian Arabs for administrative positions. While such a preference was arguably justifiable during the early years of the Mandate, inasmuch as Christian Arabs were initially more qualified from an educational standpoint, over the ensuing years, the number of Muslim youths with a suitable, secular-based education very quickly increased. There nonetheless persisted a perception of Christian favouritism – that is, that Christians still enjoyed preferential treatment with respect to government employment – and this soon came to define a significant Muslim grievance, one that would periodically prove divisive between Muslim and Christian Arabs, not least within the context of the Palestinian nationalist movement. This article seeks to ascertain whether, on the basis of a statistical analysis of the actual numbers of Muslim and Christian Arabs employed by the British Mandatory government and their respective educational qualifications, Christian Arabs did in fact constitute a privileged group. Also considered (in light of certain sociological concepts regarding group and national identity) are the ramifications of such a perception – regardless of whether reflective of the actual reality – with respect to Muslim–Christian unity, the shaping of Palestinian Arab national identity and the relationship between Arab national identity and Islam.